She began to shuffle, laboriously, along the pavement. Her head, when she raised it, was level with most people’s waists or hips. Faces bent towards her, smiling and indulgent. ‘Look, Mummy, there’s a swan!’ cried a child, about Odette’s own avian height, running up to her. Odette reached out her neck towards the little girl, but the child’s mother marched over to scoop her away. ‘Ellie, stop it. Swans are dangerous.’
Dangerous? Odette watched Ellie being pulled along by the wrist and scolded. Her human heart ached within her swan’s body. A small boy took something sticky that he’d been chewing out of his mouth and threw it at her.
Odette, dodging, shook her feathers and reminded herself of her task. Swaying over her webbed feet, she made her way along the mall, pleased that most people avoided or ignored her, until she reached a window behind which stood statue-like figures wearing attractive red, purple or charcoal garments. The fashions, miraculously free of corsets, petticoats and stockings, were so much simpler than those of her girlhood that her task should be easy. Inside, she could see a black skirt similar to the one Mitzi had lent her. She turned towards the open door and waddled in.
A buzz of astonishment went up as she stepped onto the wooden floor, but she managed to stay focused, hunting for the skirt. There it was, on a hanger amid an assortment of dark clothes, and she headed for it, beak outstretched.
‘Hey!’ An explosive noise made her jump and lift her wings: someone clapping her hands close beside her head. ‘Get off! Shoo! Get out of here!’
Odette extended her neck and hissed. The shop girl took a step back, hands flailing, trying to usher the swan towards the door. Odette dug in her claws and in one swift movement tugged the black skirt from its hanger.
‘Does it belong to somebody?’ another girl demanded. There was a shaking of heads among the customers, all of whom were standing as if spellbound. Odette, skirt in beak, edged towards the door. The garment dragged her head downwards, heavier than she’d hoped.
‘Hey!’ The scared shop girl grabbed the skirt by the hem. Odette flapped her great wings and pulled.
‘Gosia! Help me!’ called the girl. A pair of long, black-trousered legs approached Odette and even as she backed away another young woman stepped out from behind a till. Somebody grasped her body and a hand caught hold of her beak and forced it open. Fingers adorned with blue, sparkling painted nails prised the skirt from her; mortified, she felt the material slip from her grasp. Someone was coming at her with a broom; the bristles flared into her face like a mad dog. Odette cut her losses and fled. Behind her she heard a peal of laughter as the glass door swung shut.
The swan retired to a quiet corner of the street to nurse her indignation, taking it out with a hiss on a group of pigeons who were strutting about too close to her. She needed to change her strategy.
Back in the comparative safety of the air, she noticed one important difference between the shopping street and the marketplace. The shops were protected by windows and doors; the market stalls were not. At some of these, clothes were hanging on high pegs, well away from the ground. Odette wheeled back towards the river. She wanted to practise her hovering technique.
A little while later she cruised above the market, surveying the options. One stall held familiar clothing: a rack of men’s black jackets, the sort that would have been worn for dinner at her father’s castle, though these were less well cut, and made from seriously inferior materials. Opposite them sat a rail of dresses, many short and made of shiny stuff patterned with sprigs of flowers or trimmed with lace; and two that were long, full and floaty, one pink, one blue. The bodices were simple and the skirts like clouds. On a wire hanger, high on the stall’s frame, was an identical dress, as white as her feathers. It bore some resemblance to the one she had worn for her first ball when she was fourteen years old, give or take some details – the neckline was rather plain, the satin less fine, the stitching cruder, it required no underskirt and there were no diamonds – and it was not only attractive, but accessible. The approach was clear; she reckoned that all she had to do was stay in the air, no matter what happened.
She set her wings for her attack. A woman beside a fruit stall was pointing her out to a friend. The swan ignored them, fixed her gaze on her target and dived.
White satin loomed ahead and for an instant her feathers caught in the net skirt as it blew about in the turmoil of her flight. Hands grabbed at her; a large object, a briefcase or satchel, glanced against her right flank. Through the shouting and screaming she kept her nerve and her focus. She dodged the bag, dealing a flap in the face to its astonished owner, then grabbed the wire hook and rose into the air, the dress dangling beneath her as she hauled it towards the river. It was heavier still than the black skirt and she had to strain her wing muscles to stay aloft. This hadn’t occurred to her; it felt more weighty by the moment and, worse, a crowd of onlookers was gathering to follow her lumbering flight. Desperate for breath, she made for the largest building she could see: a chapel made of pale grey stone with four ornate carved turrets, an enormous stained-glass window and a high, vaulted roof. Beside it lay a tidy stretch of green lawn, bordering the river.
Fluttering beneath her as she winged over the chapel, the dress suddenly would move no further. She was being jerked out of the air; hard, slanting stone caught her as she plummeted downward. The gutter stopped her falling off the roof altogether. Gathering her ruffled dignity, she sat down, folded her wings – then wondered what in the world she could do now. The dress was trapped on a stone pinnacle atop one of the corners, billowing above her like a flag. Below, a small throng had built up to watch.
Despondent on the chapel roof, Odette began to feel worried. She’d be fine as long as she didn’t move. But swans were designed to land on and take off from water – beautiful, clear, flat stretches of fresh water – not towering rooftops. She had learned to launch herself from Mitzi’s window, she realised, because it wasn’t too high and therefore not threatening. There was security behind her both ways, and a river opposite, and once she was aloft all would be well. If she were to leap off the chapel roof there was no guarantee she’d be able to take to the air. Yet if night fell and she was still up there—
She noticed, far below, men in red uniform on a large, scarlet lorry propping up a gigantic ladder against the chapel; it was rising towards her, apparently of its own accord. Beside it stood the middle-aged woman whose angry voice identified her as the owner of the dress stall. Odette edged along the gutter and peered down into the crowd.
Mitzi was pedalling over the cobbles of Duke’s Parade when she saw a fire engine pull into a side street that was too small for it, and people running, excited rather than scared, towards the main gate of the college. She thought she could see Lara among them – Lara who would never leave her desk but for a quick sandwich at lunchtime.
She spotted the dress at once, flapping on the corner of Duke’s College Chapel, but it took a few minutes before she could make out the shape of a swan cowering at the base of the roof. She let out a laugh before anxiety struck her. She tried to jot a few words in her reporter’s notebook – swan on roof, dress caught on gargoyle, firemen as heroes – but her mind was racing. The fireman would rescue the dress, but he wouldn’t know that this swan needed rescuing too and he might leave her there. But if he didn’t leave her, then he’d have to carry her down, and then there might be calls to the RSPB or a university research department, or… Beside Mitzi, half the crowd were filming the goings-on on their phones. She pushed her way forward – the word ‘Press!’ usually helped – making as much noise as she could.
Odette heard a familiar voice and scanned the crowd for Mitzi. There she was, distant and tiny in her purple fleece, and Odette had never been so pleased to see anyone in all her many years. But how would Mitzi know it was her, not any common-or-garden swan? Odette rose on her webbed feet, flapped her wings, tried to shout to her – and with a honk, tumbled off the roof.
Mitzi dived forward as the
bundle of white feathers cascaded head over webbed feet past the stained glass and gargoyles. The force with which the swan fell into her outstretched arms knocked her flat. Grass in her mouth, feathers in her eyes, she registered that the bird was alive and unhurt. And Lara in her high heels was there, ready to help.
‘God,’ said Lara, while Mitzi picked herself up. ‘You do have bad luck with swans, don’t you?’
The swan was on its feet and Mitzi heard someone in the crowd saying: ‘Call the RSPB!’
‘Fly,’ she hissed at the swan. ‘Go on! Go home.’
The swan stared up at her. Exasperated, Mitzi scooped her up and, with a strength she didn’t know she possessed, threw her into the air. Odette spread her wings, as she had been too shocked to do during her fall, and rose upwards on a welcome current that carried her towards the sky. A second later, she had disappeared over the chapel roof. A smattering of applause sounded behind her.
Mitzi dusted herself down, retrieved her notebook and walked, head held high, back towards the college gate.
‘Hey miss, you shouldn’t have done that.’ A departing fireman accosted her. ‘We were just getting the RSPB.’
‘They’d have done the same,’ Mitzi replied. ‘The poor thing’s had a nasty time and probably wants to get back to the river.’
‘Yes, Mitzi, how did you know what to do?’ asked Lara.
‘When I was a kid, my dad once rescued a swan that was caught in some wire, and that was what he did.’
‘At least Mrs McSwidden got the dress back,’ Lara said. ‘I must find out what the legal position is if one’s stock is stolen by animals.’
‘Act of God, I reckon. I must go and write this up for the paper. See you!’ Mitzi escaped, giddy with relief.
‘Act of God?’ echoed Lara as Mitzi paced away.
‘We’re all His creatures,’ the fireman said. ‘Though I doubt Mrs McSwidden would agree.’
‘You have to buy things,’ Mitzi said, for the fifteenth time. She was sitting opposite the unapologetic Odette, arms folded, trying to impress upon her that one could not simply swipe a dress from the market and fly away with it, hanger and all. ‘That book online was free, but that’s different…’
‘I know, but how can I? I have nothing,’ said Odette, also for the fifteenth time. ‘I want beautiful dress to wear to ball.’
‘Of course, but that’s not the way to get it.’
‘So I get how?’
‘I get for you.’ It was difficult not to lapse into Odette’s speech patterns, especially when infuriated.
‘Not right for you.’
‘No, not right. So we find some work for you to do, yes?’
‘I work, so get money, so can buy.’
‘Exactly. Speaking of which, we need something for dinner. Come down to the corner shop with me?’
Odette put on her new shoes and the warm white jersey to follow Mitzi cautiously down the stairs.
‘So what I do?’ she demanded as they walked.
‘It’s tricky because you don’t have any papers, work permits and so on – you’re not a legal immigrant. That means you’re technically an illegal immigrant. Now, I don’t like this any more than you do, but you’ll have to find some kind of work in which people will let you get away with it and will pay you cash, but won’t treat you badly because of it. If you could learn to type and improve your English at the same time it’d be a good – Odette? Are you listening?’
‘That dress. So beautiful…’
Mitzi knew that in the morning she’d be going to the market to try and buy the dress for Odette. She pushed open the shop door; Odette jumped when the bell jangled.
Mitzi made for the cartons of soup while Odette stood and gazed as if mesmerised at rack upon rack of foodstuffs in multicoloured tins, packets, tubes and bags. She picked up a bottle of tomato ketchup and tried to open the lid.
‘Odette, leave it alone.’
‘Must buy first?’ Odette gave a sigh. ‘Is red paint.’
‘It’s not red paint,’ whispered Mitzi, avoiding the gaze of the shopkeeper, Uma, a frazzled but motherly woman in her forties who was her friend. ‘This is a food shop. That’s a sort of sauce made from tomatoes.’
Odette replaced the bottle and peered into a lighted freezer compartment. Mitzi explained the concept.
‘Oh yes!’ Odette cried. ‘Once I fly over this land that is always frozen and I find dead bear. This bear, it dead long time, but no smell or sign of death because of ice. Me, I think I am as if kept in ice by spell…’
‘Hush…’ Mitzi saw Uma, behind the counter, looking on in astonishment.
‘And this?’ Odette picked up a packet of prawn-cocktail-flavoured crisps.
Mitzi outlined the making of crisps.
‘But this is miracle!’ said Odette. ‘Tell me, why crisps not frozen?’
‘It’s more convenient like this, because you can open them anywhere and eat them right away.’
‘We try?’
Mitzi never touched crisps. She popped the packet into her basket.
‘Prawn cocktail,’ Odette mused, her eyes excited. ‘Is like drink?’
‘No, is nothing like drink. Prawns are shellfish.’
‘Then is not cocktail!’
Mitzi groaned softly, but Odette’s eye had already been caught by something else.
‘Mitzi! Carrots! Potatoes! Look! Look! Where is earth, mud?’
‘Our vegetables are cleaned and sent to us in the very best condition,’ Uma said from the till.
‘But this I never see! This is best shop in Cygnford.’
‘Glad you like it.’ Uma flashed a white-toothed smile.
Odette, clutching a potato, glanced a second time at her. ‘You are from where?’ she asked.
‘Bradford. It’s up north, in Yorkshire. You don’t know England well?’
‘Uma, meet my Russian friend, Odette,’ Mitzi intervened. ‘She’s from Siberia, she’s never been here before and there are lots of things she finds a little… strange. Would you mind telling her a bit about your background, please?’
‘Ah, I see. Well, my family were Indian, but they lived in Kenya, in Africa,’ Uma explained. ‘My parents came to this country in the 1970s and they set up several shops just like this one, which is now mine.’
‘They can? This possible?’
‘Yes, a lot of people did this. It’s a family business and I hope I can build it up more so that my daughter will inherit something even better.’
‘So I could come here and work too? I need work if I stay.’ Odette stroked a pale, clean potato.
‘It’s complicated – you have to go through the right official channels. You need proof that you’re here legally. Can you get that? Have you got a permit in your passport?’
‘It’s a tricky sort of situation,’ Mitzi said, ‘and a very long story, but basically at the moment Odette has nothing at all, no passport or papers or money or anything, and that’s why I’m trying to help her.’
‘I was just reading your article,’ said Uma, ‘about the Romanians in the village house. It’s appalling. They make people live in such terrible conditions.’
‘She’s not connected with that, I promise. It’s… hard to explain.’
Odette’s face fell. ‘Can I not work as I am? Is difficult, Uma, because Mitzi uses her money to buy things I need. Is not right. I feel so bad for her, I don’t know what to do to help.’
Uma’s eyebrows twitched upwards; Mitzi could see that Odette’s somewhat unusual sense of responsibility had made an impression. ‘Hmm… Look, I wouldn’t normally think of doing this, but evenings are always a tricky time to find people to help out and it’s difficult for me with the children. If you’re looking for some night work that doesn’t have to be official, I could use an assistant in the shop a few times a week. It would have to be very informal and I can’t pay a lot, but it might help, yeah?’
‘Oh, Uma, that is amazing! This shop, this paradise!’
Mitzi paid
Uma for the groceries. ‘Maybe a trial run…?’
‘Possibly,’ Uma said. ‘Yes, Odette – why don’t you come and try a couple of hours and see how you get on?’
‘That’s very kind. We’ll make a plan.’ Mitzi felt like an overprotective mother. ‘Come on, Odette, let’s go home. I have to write up your escapade at the chapel for the newspaper.’
11
The next morning the Cygnford Daily website featured a large photo of a white dress flapping from the tower of Duke’s College Chapel, plus several zoom-lens close-ups of the swan cowering by the roof gutter. But John, with the words, ‘Front page stuff and this is all you can do?’ had thrown Mitzi’s own paragraphs back at her by email. The final story had been sexed up, with short and superfluous words, by someone who hadn’t even been there. Mitzi logged off, fuming. Why hire journalists at all if you only ask unpaid interns to rewrite the copy? More productive than feeling angry, she decided, would be to head for the market to buy the dress.
Of course, it had gone.
‘Snapped up first thing,’ said a satisfied Mrs McSwidden. ‘All that fuss.’
‘Have you got anything else like it?’
‘Have a browse. Take your time.’
Mitzi spotted the pink and blue versions of the dress; neither colour seemed right for Odette. But there, at the end of the rail, hung a faithful replica of cocktail dresses from the 1920s, its white material emblazoned with metallic Art Deco shapes, fringed at the hem and studded with intricate beading. The shape would suit Odette’s bony figure and it was unusual enough to suit her personality too. As for size, they could work some magic with safety pins. ‘I’ll take this one…’
Odette Page 11
